People attend the official opening of the Music City Center convention center in May 2013. / John Partipilo / File / The Tennessean

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The Tennessean

Fans filled the Music City Center for Fan Fair X during the 2013 CMA Music Festival in June. The center hosted 100 events in the first quarter of this fiscal year. / Shelley Mays / File / The Tennessean

A media tour of the newly constructed Music City Center was held May 15, 2013. / Dipti Vaidya / File / The Tennessean

A media tour of the newly constructed Music City Center was held May 15, 2013. / Dipti Vaidya / File / The Tennessean

A media tour of the newly constructed Music City Center was held May 15, 2013. / Dipti Vaidya / File / The Tennessean

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The new downtown convention center has generated 18,751 hotel room nights and a $26 million economic impact, according to numbers released Thursday by the Convention Center Authority.

Those numbers put the new center well below the original 2010 projections by HVS, the city’s consultant, which said at the time that Music City Center would generate 49 conventions and trade shows for 332,333 room nights in 2013.

The study, however, predicted the center and its headquarters hotel would be open earlier in the year than what ended up happening, so the projections don’t align perfectly. The Omni Hotel had its grand opening on Monday and Music City Center opened in May.

Music City Center has hosted 100 events with 62,125 attendees during the first quarter of this fiscal year, the Convention Center Authority said.

“We’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to host events for numerous groups in the community, most recently the NAACP’s 40th annual Freedom Fund Gala and the Nashville Downtown Partnership’s annual meeting and awards luncheon,” said Charles Starks, President/CEO of the Music City Center. “We have been very busy, but our team has done a great job adjusting to the high demand that this building has created, and things are running very smoothly.”

Collections for the tourism-related taxes and fees that pay back the debt used to finance the center are up 12.7 percent year over year for July 2013. However, those tourism tax collections had been on the upswing before the convention center opened, and the city uses taxes generated by all tourists, not just business tourists.